Fourth of the Wu Di (Five Emperors) per the Shiji canonical-historical framework; the foundational Sage-King of the Confucian-canonical tradition; son of Diku by his consort Qing Du. The foundational meritocratic-succession episode — Yao's abdication to Shun (a commoner of exemplary virtue) rather than to his own son Danzhu — established the template of merit-based succession that became one of the most-discussed political-philosophical episodes in Chinese intellectual history. Mencius (5A.5-6) treats the Yao-Shun abdication as the foundational case-study of Tian-Ming (Mandate of Heaven) succession-legitimacy: the throne is the gift of Heaven and the people, not heritable property of the sovereign. The Confucian-canonical idealization of Yao as exemplar of sage-king moral-frugality (the austere thatched residence, the personal labor in the fields, the elevation of capable ministers regardless of social origin) made him the foundational moral-political archetype of subsequent Chinese imperial-rhetorical tradition.